France 2001-2

 

The marked rise in antisemitic violence since the last quarter of 2000 continued into 2001 and 2002. An unprecedented peak of more than 400 antisemitic attacks was recorded in the period fall 2000 to spring 2002. The reaction of the authorities was relatively muted, despite calls from the main Jewish organizations to enact strong law enforcement measures against the perpetrators, mainly Muslims of North African origin. Extreme right candidate National Front chairman Jean-Marie Le Pen came a surprising second in the April 2002 presidential elections, although defeated in the second round by incumbent President Jacques Chirac.

 

THE JEWISH COMMUNITY:

The French Jewish community numbers between 500,000 and 600,000 out of a total population of 60 million. The largest community is in the Paris area (300–350,000), followed by Marseille (80,000), Lyon (30,000), Nice and Toulouse (20,000). Strasbourg, where 12,000 Jews live, is a major religious and cultural center.

The three main organizations of French Jewry are the Conseil Représentatif des Institutions Juives de France (CRIF), the Consistoire Central and the Fonds Social Juif Unifié (FSJU). There has been a dramatic revitalization of communal life since the early 1980s, which is reflected in the large number of Jewish private schools (over 80, attended by 5 percent of Jewish schoolchildren) and synagogues (over 150 in the Paris area). 

 

POLITICAL PARTIES AND EXTRA PARLIAMENTARY GROUPS:

Despite the strong showing of Front National chairman Jean-Marie Le Pen in the presidential elections (see below), the main concern of France’s Jewish community is now the pro-Palestinian movement and its supporters from the extreme left – the Trotskyite factions (Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire; Lutte Ouvrière and Parti des Travailleurs), the Parti Communiste and the anti-globalization movement, whose key figure is the Coordination Paysanne (peasant) activist José Bové. These groups were active in the pro-Palestinian – often violent and anti-Jewish – demonstrations which took place virtually every week throughout 2001/2 in major cities.

 

Extreme Left Parties

There is growing support for extreme left-wing parties among French voters as a result of the decline of the Communist Party and discontent among the working class with the policies of the Socialist Party, which was in power between 1997 and 2002. As a consequence, in the presidential election, Arlette Laguiller, candidate of Lutte Ouvrière (LO), polled 5.7 percent, Olivier Besancenot, of the Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire (LCR), polled 5.2 percent, and Daniel Gluckstein, of the Parti des Travailleurs, polled 0.5 percent. These anti-Zionist parties deny Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state, favoring a “socialist and secular state” in Palestine where Jewish and Palestinian citizens would enjoy equal national rights. Now represented in the European Parliament and in several regional councils, LO and LCR were dominant in the pro-Palestinian demonstrations staged under the aegis of the Coordination des appels pour une paix juste au Proche-Orient (CAPJO; led by Olivia Zemor) and the Comité Palestine. While it has moderated its anti-Zionist tone, the Communist Party, which polled 4.8 percent in the June 2002 general election (returning 21 MPs), remains firmly hostile to Israeli policies, and its sister anti-racist organization, MRAP (Mouvement contre le Racisme et pour l'Amitié entre les Peuples), is a prime campaigner for the pro-Palestinian cause.

The Green Party has the most aggressive stand on the Middle East and is the most hostile to Israel among the far left parties. Some of its leaders, such as Noël Mamère, its presidential candidate (5.3 percent), and Euro-MP Alain Lipietz, were attacked by Jewish institutions and community representatives for their pro-Palestinian views. In June 2002, the Jewish weekly Actualité Juive revealed that Ginette Skandrani, a dues paying member of the Greens in Paris, had contributed to several far right publications and websites, including that of Unité Radicale (see below). She also participated in an antisemitic meeting of the Parti des Musulmans de France (see below).

Other small ultra-left groups of note include Secours Rouge, which supports George Habash’s Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and helps far left “political prisoners” from Action Directe, the Red Brigades or the Spanish GRAPO. The Trotskyist movement L'Etincelle-Socialisme par en-bas, which is close to the position of the British Anti-Nazi League, is unusual in that it accepts Muslim militants into its ranks. The Maoist Parti Communiste des Ouvriers de France (Maoist), which emulates the Peruvian Sendero Luminoso, is also active in the pro-Palestinian movement. Turkish (Kurdish) Maoist parties such as DHKP-C and TKEP/L have also become increasingly involved in this movement. They are well organized and enjoy a militant constituency of several hundred dedicated members.

 

Extreme Right Parties

The main far right parties are Front National (FN), founded in 1972, and the Mouvement National Républicain (MNR), founded in 1999 by Bruno Mégret when he split from the FN. Le Pen, who turned 74 in June 2002, succeeded in maintaining his party as the main challenger to both the Conservative-Liberal coalition (Union pour la Majorité Présidentielle) and the left coalition (Socialist Party, Communist Party and the Greens). In the 2002 general election, the FN polled 11.3 percent but because of the majority vote system, did not win any seats. Le Pen himself came a surprising second in the April 2002 presidential election with 16.86 percent, and although defeated in the second round to incumbent Jacques Chirac, polled 17.79 percent. Mégret received a mere 2.3 percent of the vote in the presidential election and his party won only 1.1 percent in the general election, results that have weakened the party considerably and its future appears uncertain.

After 11 September, both MNR and FN tried to tone down their antisemitic rhetoric by adopting a pro-Israel stance. After a lengthy and stormy internal debate, MNR expressed its support for the US and concentrated its attacks upon French Muslims and their alleged extremism. As a result, the Terre et Peuple faction, led by Pierre Vial, left the party because of its pro-US stand. During the presidential campaign, Le Pen gave interviews to leading Israeli daily newspapers, in which he praised Prime Minister Sharon's policies and equated his own actions against the Arabs as a paratrooper during the Algerian war with those of the Sharon government against the Palestinian Authority.

 

Extra parliamentary Groups

Extreme right fringe groups are few and relatively inactive. The neo-Nazi Parti Nationaliste Français et Européen (PNFE), was disbanded in June 2000. The Parti Nationaliste Français (PNF), led by former Waffen SS man Jean Castrillo, still publishes the Militant bulletin. Although numbering fewer than 50 active members, it was joined by former FN, then MNR, regional counselor Eddy Marsan, from the Aquitaine region. Several semi-clandestine groups centered on a bulletin, such as La Meute de Fenrir, Combat Furtif and Front d'Est, promote the “leaderless resistance” concept, mainly for skinheads. The skinhead scene is divided between chapters of the Hammerskins and Blood & Honour (both active on the Internet). Oeuvre Française, led by Pierre Sidos and Yvan Benedetti, publishes the bulletin Jeune Nation irregularly.

Until its prohibition on 6 August 2002, the leading radical right group was Unité Radicale. The group and its website were banned by the government following a failed assassination attempt on President Chirac by one of its members during the Bastille Day (14 July 2002) parade in Paris. Unité Radicale, which emerged in 1998 on the foundations of Nouvelle Résistance, is a strongly anti-Zionist, national revolutionary movement that repeatedly published press releases praising Hamas suicide bombings in Israel. In April 2002, it invited German neo-Nazi lawyer Horst Mahler to a public meeting in Paris, at which Belgian New Right thinker Robert Steuckers acted as translator. Shortly afterwards, former leader of Unité Radicale Christian Bouchet, who favored working closely with MNR, was ousted and replaced by Fabrice Robert and Guillaume Luyt, who want to follow a more independent line and attract disgruntled MNR members. Maxime Brunerie, the would-be assassin, had been a member of Unité Radicale since February 2002, and was a MNR candidate in the 2002 Paris city council election. Unité Radicale was planning to re-form as a registered political party under a new name. Bouchet now heads the very small Réseau Radical and still publishes the monthly Résistance!.

 

Islamist Groups

According to journalist Xavier Ternisien in the daily Le Monde of 25 January 2002, French fundamentalist Islam, which is overwhelmingly Sunni, is composed of four distinct streams: the Muslim Brothers; the Tabligh; the Salafi and the Ahbachi.

The Muslim Brothers are divided between the Association des étudiants islamiques en France, which is close to the Syrian Muslim Brothers, and the Union des Organisations Islamiques de France (UOIF), associated with the Egyptian branch. As the most moderate fundamentalist faction, the latter has been asked by the government to join a representative council of French Islam – Conseil français du culte musulman – formed under the aegis of the Ministry of the Interior on 20 December 2002. UOIF seeks to accommodate secularism to the needs of Muslim believers and strictly abides by the country’s laws. Swiss theologian Tariq Ramadan is considered to be close to this school of thought. Despite its relative moderation, UOIF allows antisemitic literature to be sold at its annual rally in Le Bourget. For instance, in Le manifeste judéo-nazi d'Ariel Sharon, a 64-page booklet, falsely portrayed as an interview given by the Israeli prime minister to the writer Amos Oz, in 1982, Sharon allegedly said that he wanted to do to the Arabs what the Nazis did to the Jews. The text was, in fact, published by Mondher Sfar, a Tunisian Marxist who heads the Collectif de la communauté tunisienne en Europe and wrote articles for Pierre Guillaume's Holocaust denying publication; La pierre et l'olivier, a pro-Palestinian association led by Ginette Skandrani; the Parti des Musulmans de France (see below); and the Arab Commission of Human Rights.

The Tabligh movement, of Indian and Pakistani origin, has been active in France since 1968. As a missionary movement, it has played a key role in bringing back many young people of Arab and African origin to religion. With headquarters in Saint-Denis (near Paris), it is active in Lille, Marseille, Mulhouse and Dreux.

The Salafi, a Wahhabi puritan and arch-conservative school of thought, are expanding rapidly. In France, most of the Salafi belong to the so-called Shaykhist branch, which observes the fatwas (religious edicts) of Saudi religious authorities from Mecca and Medina universities. A small minority follows the so-called Jihadist group, led by the London-based Abu Hamza, of Finsbury Park mosque (see UK).

The Ahbachi sect, originating in Lebanon in about 1980 and allegedly financed by Syria, is also expanding. They operate under the name Association des Projets de Bienfaisance Islamique en France, under the guidance of Lebanese Shaykh Khaled El Zant, based in Montpellier. They are active in the 18th district of Paris, in Nice, Saint-Etienne, Saint-Dizier, Narbonne, Lyon, Nîmes, Rennes and Toulouse. The elder brother of Zakarias Moussaoui, accused in the US of involvement in the September 11 attacks, is an Ahbach.

Other noteworthy Islamist groups include Takfir wal'Hijra (Sunni extremist sect with Algerian terrorist links), whose main clandestine branch is believed to operate in the Yvelines department, west of Paris; the Kaplanji movement, led by the so-called Caliph of Cologne Metin Kaplan, which operates in Paris under the name Association Islamique en France; and the Turkish Mili Görus, under the name Islam Toplumu Mili Görus.

The strongly antisemitic and Holocaust denying Parti des Musulmans de France (PMF), founded in 1997 by Mohammed Ennacer Latrèche and based in Strasbourg, strives to participate in all elections, but has never polled more than 0.67 percent locally (Strasbourg, 1997). On 7 October 2000 it led a 3,000-strong demonstration against Israel, during which the slogan “Death to the Jews” was heard. The PMF used to be in contact with the German branch of Mili Görus, which is active in the Alsace province, where the Muslim community is predominantly Turkish.

At all major pro-Palestinian demonstrations in Paris, a group of about 150–200 followers of the Palestinian Hamas and Lebanese Hizballah have appeared, waving posters of Hamas leader Shaykh Ahmad Yassin and  shouting slogans such as “ Jews to the ovens” or “Jews are the enemies of humanity.” These groups are well organized and structured: the use of cellular phones is common for contact between cells, and senior members protect their identities behind aliases when speaking to each other. Most followers are aged between 16 and 30 and are French-born citizens, originating from the Yvelines, or the eastern and northern suburbs or eastern boroughs of Paris. While their knowledge of Islam is limited (a majority are new converts to Sunni Islam, but support the Shi‘ite Hizballah), most seem to have mastered the Arabic language. Many are young educated women who are often more vociferously antisemitic than men. For the first time these groups have declared their ideology openly (waving the yellow Hizballah flag; calling Muslims to prayer after the demonstrations; wearing T-shirts with the slogan – in French – “Hamas: the sword of the faithful”). (The above information based on field work conducted by Jean-Yves Camus, Centre européen de recherche et d’action sur le racisme et l’antisémitisme – CERA.)

The main Islamic charities raising money for Palestine are Secours islamique (branch of the UK-based Islamic Relief) and Comité de Bienfaisance et de Soutien aux Palestiniens (CBSP; supported by Shaykh Raid Salah, former mayor of Umm al-Fahm). The Association de Solidarité Franco-Palestinienne, based in Paris, praised the “martyrs” (suicide bombers) in a leaflet distributed during pro-Palestinian demonstrations in October 2002. Although not led by Islamists, and not even by Muslims, it openly supports Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The main Islamic websites are oumma.com and islamiyah.net (the most radical).

 

antisemitic activities

The marked rise in antisemitic violence reported in 2000 continued into 2001/2, reaching an unprecedented peak, with more than 400 antisemitic attacks recorded for the period fall 2000 to spring 2002.The reaction of the authorities was relatively muted, despite calls from the main Jewish organizations to enact strong law enforcement measures against the perpetrators, mostly Muslims of Arab/North African origin. French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin’s assurance that the government was determined to curb antisemitic attacks was met with skepticism by participants at a CRIF dinner meeting on 1 December 2001.

The wave of antisemitism appeared to be both a consequence of the undeniable growth of Muslim extremism, triggered by events in the Middle East, and a phenomenon rooted in social unrest in the suburbs, mainly among disaffected youth of Muslim (North African) origin. A possible explanation for the government’s soft line was that, with both a presidential and a general election in the offing, it preferred not to alienate the large Muslim electorate by enacting new legislation against antisemitism. Another possibility is that the Left, which was in power until spring 2002, simply failed to understand the scope and magnitude of the wave, which contradicted all the scholarly research and surveys proving that antisemitism had been on the decline since 1945.

Jewish institutions pointed to biased coverage of the Middle East conflict in the French media as a source of antisemitism, and some leading intellectuals close to the community (Alain Finkielkraut; Pierre-André Taguieff, among others) claimed that the Left was now the main bearer of anti-Israel/anti-Zionist prejudice. It should be noted, however, that the Gaullist right has always had a pro-Arab foreign policy, as proven by the number of Gaullists in the pro-Iraqi lobby or in the Association France-Pays Arabes.

 

Violence, Vandalism and Threats

There were numerous acts of arson and vandalism against Jewish property and institutions and several violent attacks on Jewish individuals. Two Jews were knifed, in separate incidents, by youths of North African or Middle East origin in Strasbourg in January 2001. The blind rabbi of the Cannes congregation was cursed and threatened with a knife in April and the Rouen rabbi was assaulted by a man of Moroccan origin as he was leaving the synagogue in November.

            Noteworthy in 2002 were violent attacks on young Jewish groups. Jewish school children traveling on buses were the targets of several such acts. For example, two buses carrying pupils in the Paris suburb of Aubervilliers, which has a large North African population, were set alight in April. Earlier, in January, a bus carrying Jewish children from the Paris suburb of Sarcelles to Aubervilliers was stoned and its windows smashed. An amateur Jewish soccer team was attacked in the Paris suburb of Bondy by youths of North African origin wielding sticks and iron bars. One member of the team was hospitalized. Students of the Montreuil Jewish trade school ORT were attacked with iron bars by nearly 40 youths of North African origin, near a subway station.

            Among the many arson and other attacks on synagogues, Jewish schools and clubs, and cemeteries in 2001/2, the Tifefet Israel school in Sarcelles was burnt down following two attacks in February 2001, and the Gan Pardes school in Marseille was set alight in September 2001 and slogans “Death to the Jews” and “Bin Ladin will conquer” were spray painted on the walls. The Maccabi club house in Toulouse was burnt down in April 2002. Synagogues in and around Paris (Goussanville, La Courneuve, Garges-les-Gonesses), Lyons and Nice were the targets of Molotov cocktail and other arson attacks as well as stone and bottle throwing, sometimes on more than one occasion.. Several acts of desecration were recorded at Jewish cemeteries and Holocaust memorials, including Cronenboug and Schiltigheim, near Strasbourg, and the Holocaust memorial at Reims.

            The Jewish National Fund (JNF) was forced to cancel a Chanukka movie for Jewish children in a Paris theater following threatening phone calls and e-mail from pro-Palestinian activists, who demanded cancellation of the event because the JNF allegedly contributed to the Israeli occupation of Palestine. There were also several cases of abusive mail containing latent threats, including one to the Liberal synagogue in Marseille, several to Jews in Toulouse and two in Avignon.

 

Demonstrations

Among the almost weekly pro-Palestinian demonstrations held throughout France in 2001/2, antisemitic slogans were often heard. For example, at a rally in Nîmes on 5 June 2001, and at the weekly gatherings in Paris, participants called “Death to the Jews” and “Death to Israel.” Many demonstrators also bore posters with the slogan “Sharon=Hitler” or equated the Star of David with the swastika.

 

attitudes toward the holocaust and the nazi era

Holocaust Commemoration

Ceremonies in memory of the Holocaust and protesting more recent antisemitism were held in January 2001 in the Opera quarter of Marseille, the deportation site for Jews in World War II.

            The French government is planning to dedicate as a national monument the site at Drancy, the transit camp where most of the 76,000 French Jewish deportees were held during World War II before being sent to concentration camps.

            An exhibition entitled “Memoir of the Camps: Photographs of Nazi Concentration Camps and Extermination Camps, 1933–1999” was held in the Marais district of Paris as of March 2001. The postwar section of the exhibition contains contemporary photos of the camps and of survivors.

 

War Criminals

Various public figures, including resistance fighters and two former prime ministers, appealed for the release of Maurice Papon, 92, former general secretary of police in Gironde, 1942–44, who was sentenced to ten years in prison in 1998 for deporting Jews during the German occupation. On 18 September 2002 an appeals court granted his release on the grounds of his ill-health, a decision that angered Jewish organizations and survivor families at home and abroad. The French justice minister, who opposed the decision, has appealed to the Cour de Cassation (the highest court of appeal in France).

            On 2 March 2001 a Paris court sentenced Alois Brunner to life imprisonment for war crimes, in absentia. Brunner, 89, is thought to be alive in Syria. Brunner was sentenced to death at a previous trial held in absentia in 1954 by military tribunals in Paris and Marseille.

 

RESPONSES TO RACISM AND ANTISEMITISM

As a result of the situation in the Middle East, the former unity of the anti-racist movement, born out of a common concern about the Front National, was broken and a sharp divide now exists between “pro-Palestinian” human rights organizations (MRAP; Ligue des Droits de l'Homme) and “pro-Israeli” ones such as LICRA, UEJF (Union des Etudiants Juifs de France) and to a lesser extent, SOS-Racisme (chaired by Malek Boutih, who is committed to the existence of a Palestinian state alongside Israel, but strongly condemns antisemitic acts. SOS-Racisme and UEJF co-edited a book, Les antifeujs, about antisemitism). The “J'accuse” association, led by Marc Knobel, specializes in legal action against hate websites. The Jewish Defense League (Ligue de Défense Juive) has now joined the fight against leftist and Islamic antisemitism, receiving considerable media attention. A growing number of radical Jewish websites use blatantly racist language when referring to Arabs.

            Judge Jean-Jacques Gomez, who ruled in November 2000 that Yahoo! Inc. must block access of French citizens to its US-based auction sites that sell Nazi memorabilia, began hearings in September 2001, following an action by J’Accuse, on whether Internet providers should censor portals on their networks to prevent French citizens from viewing links to neo-Nazi sites. Earlier in the year, Yahoo! sued LICRA in a California court, claiming that a French court has no jurisdiction over Yahoo! USA and that the French court ruling violates its constitutional rights.

            Similarly, the French anti-racism group  Action internationale pour la justice – (AIPJ, another name for J’Accuse) is seeking a court injunction to block a Nazi US web portal Front 14, which groups some 400 racist websites.

            The UEJF, LICRA and J’Accuse reached an agreement with the editors of the encyclopedia QUID, over its entry on Holocaust denier Robert Faurisson. QUID will expunge Faurisson’s claims about the number of Jewish deaths at Auschwitz from future print editions of the historical section and from its Internet site, but will continue to present his work in its section on Holocaust revisionism.

            Hans Munch, formerly a doctor at Auschwitz, now living in Bavaria, was found guilty of inciting racial hatred in October 2001. The Paris court decision overturned the verdict of a German lower court which considered Munch mentally unstable when he praised the Nazi extermination of the Roma.

            Demonstrators from CRIF, members of parliament, anti-racist activists and human rights supporters protested the visit to France of Syrian President Bashar al-Asad in June 2001. The protest was based on antisemitic remarks made by Asad during the visit of Pope John Paul II to Syria (see Arab Countries).